A Change of Pace – Some Clay Work in Process

I’ve been doing a lot of collage/mixed media lately. Time to switch to clay for a bit. I need to create some inventory for the shows I have lined up for 2013. Since clay requires time and patience, I have to keep a sense of the time it takes to make enough work. You can’t hurry the clay, that is for sure.

Plus, I just feel that itch to work with clay now.

Here are some tiles I made yesterday. They are not even to the leather-hard stage in these pictures – I really did just finish them before I photographed them. I was using Standard clay #266, which fires to a very dark brown. It is a plastic, slippery clay, and it warps with no encouragement at all, but I love the finished look of anything I make with it. And I also like the smooth way it flows so easily into the shapes and forms I create.

Three ladies.

Finished work sitting on a table in my studio, waiting to be shelved.

Creatures.

Creature and bird.

A finished tile from the past, showing how the clay looks when fired – this tile has a turquoise underglaze for color.

4 thoughts on “A Change of Pace – Some Clay Work in Process”

Thank you. I was thinking, if I can keep my mind on it, to show pictures of these pieces as they make their way through the process. I have never documented that – it is so easy just to focus on the finished item, but that’s really such a small part of the story. Thanks for taking the time to comment, I appreciate it.

It is easy for me to tell you to document the process – I would like to see the process! People have asked me how I take an old picture and make it look better (well, I shouldn’t say I make it better – but they are old and I try to revive them). I am lazy about showing the before and after – BUT I can tell you that LOVE to see other people’s process. Your creative process is much longer and far more significant than my simple work – thus, it is far more more interesting. So if you aren’t as lazy as I am – you will give us a little bit of the process. We (I am speaking for others) are interested in your process – so show it if you have time – people will appreciate it!

Thank you, I did not think anyone would be too interested. I have some pictures from the very beginning of the process – I needed them to document for a show that I really did make my own product. And now that I’ve said this, I am interested in seeing some tiles start to finish – it is part of my interest in clay to see the changes a piece goes through. But I know that as I go through each step, the memory of the ones before is fainter, for a particular piece. You do tend to anticipate the finished item as being the “real” accomplishment.

And I haven’t even thought about figurines or the architectural sculptures I sometimes make. Those take patience even in the construction.

And then there is the drama of if the piece even makes it, which isn’t always the case.

Wow! There is more to think about than I thought.Thanks for your encouragement.